About Norma Shearer
Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, was nominated six times in all, and won one for Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930). The childhood and adolescence that Shearer once described as "a pleasant dream" ended in 1918 when her father's company collapsed, and her older sister Athole suffered her first serious mental breakdown. Reviewing Shearer's work, Mick LaSalle called her a feminist pioneer, or "the exemplar of sophisticated modern womanhood and... the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen". Edith offered support, but as Shearer entered adolescence, she became secretly fearful that her daughter's physical flaws would jeopardize her chances.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.